Palo Alto Baylands BIF

jfriend

Got a new toy (600 f/4 and Wimberley head) for use with my D300 and went out to the local baylands last week to shoot some birds. Had a blast. Lots to learn. Here are some of the early results:

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Andy

AforAperture

Wow, those are some great shots. Especially the flight ones, I can't imagine what you'll be doing with that lens in a month or so!

joemc

WOW....it looks like you do not need much of a learning curve with the new toys...lol

Great job, joe

Harryb

Very nice John. Looks like you're gonna give that new glass a workout.

jfriend

Had 90 minutes to kill away from home (on carpool duty) and decided I'd go exploring access to the SF Bay around Radio Road in Redwood City and see if I could find any birds to shoot. After lugging my D300 + 600f/4 + tripod + Wimberley around for quite awhile, all I had found was geese (which are not my favorite to shoot) and I called the trip a bust.

Packed up the car and was driving away when I spied this guy sitting in a slough near the road. Stopped the car, and just as I set up my tripod, he got spooked and took to the air and I got this one just as the light was waning and he was leaving (this is almost no cropping):

Ric Grupe

I bet you like this one!....I do.:D

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

Had 90 minutes to kill away from home (on carpool duty) and decided I'd go exploring access to the SF Bay around Radio Road in Redwood City and see if I could find any birds to shoot. After lugging my D300 + 600f/4 + tripod + Wimberley around for quite awhile, all I had found was geese (which are not my favorite to shoot) and I called the trip a bust.

Packed up the car and was driving away when I spied this guy sitting in a slough near the road. Stopped the car, and just as I set up my tripod, he got spooked and took to the air and I got this one just as the light was waning and he was leaving (this is almost no cropping):

Yowser!

(John, if you object, I'll take this down... yeah I used my power to look at the -O :jfriend )



Must be a dream lens wrt AF, yes?

Mitchell

Sweet lens! On my lust list for sure. That last one is a beauty. No cropping? Of course no cropping with that lens. You never need to crop again!!

Hikin' Mike

Congratulations on your new toy, even if it's a Nikon...! I've been out there once, after one of my (many) appointments at Stanford hospital.

Great series John!

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

Yowser!

(John, if you object, I'll take this down... yeah I used my power to look at the -O :jfriend )



Must be a dream lens wrt AF, yes?

No objection to showing the 100% crop. I hadn't looked at that myself yet. The lens is awesomely sharp when I get the technique right! There is no doubt about that. It's sharp up close or far away. I figure these are all hand tweaked in the factor and, being a prime, there's no reason they shouldn't have it dead on when it leaves the factory.

When taking shots of smaller birds, I can crop quite a bit and still get a great looking sharp shot because of the quality. Couldn't do that as much with my 200-400.

Also, since I'm used to shooting with the 200-400 and regularly thinking about the zoom position, I suddenly find it a lot simpler to shoot with a prime. Sure, I lose some flexibility when I'd like to pull back a little on the shot, but the prime does let you focus more on the other things.

I was hoping for a whole sequence of this shot that would catch the wings in a bunch of different positions, but he was literally filling the frame with his wings expanded and I didn't get very many that didn't have some wing clipping on the edge. Plus, I didn't nail AF on all of them (my technique and fading light, nothing to do with the lens).

This is indeed one dream lens for birding. Still haven't found a comfortable way to walk a couple miles with it though as the whole setup is a bit of a beast. I've got some more ideas to try next time. The wimberley helps a lot too. I was shooting the 200-400 from a monopod, but the wimberley gives you much easier tracking, particular when there's both axes of motion (left/right and up/down).

The lesson for me on this excursion was to keep your eyes peeled all the time - even when things have been crummy so far and you don't think you're in the prime location. It only takes one good shot of something you weren't expecting to make the trip for me.